


How Can I Be True Today?

by theatergirl06



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24300814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theatergirl06/pseuds/theatergirl06
Summary: May 19th has come again, and Anne finds herself doing the very thing that brought about her death 484 years ago.
Relationships: Anne Boleyn & Anne of Cleves, Anne Boleyn & Catherine Parr, Anne Boleyn & Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn & Jane Seymour, Anne Boleyn & Katherine Howard, Anne Boleyn/Catherine of Aragon
Comments: 8
Kudos: 91





	How Can I Be True Today?

**Author's Note:**

> An Anne Boleyn Death Day Fic! A couple of days late, but about twice as long as what I usually write so that's cool!  
> TW: Death, blood, beheading, pain, flashbacks.  
> Aragon/Boleyn can be read as platonic or romantic.

Anne Boleyn had never been a very good liar. Despite the way she’d been painted by history, she’d never been a manipulator. She very rarely outright lied, and when she did, she seemed to always fail. Someone always knew she was lying, even if she didn’t know it herself. Kat could always tell when she was suppressing anything, Anna was a master at knowing when her plans hadn’t actually gone as planned, and Catherine...well, Catherine always knew when anyone was lying. Anne didn’t have a lot of practice, and was therefore certainly not an exception to that rule.  
So she hadn’t expected to spend the entirety of May 19th lying to everyone.  
She hadn’t even intended to do it.  
She’d been preparing for this day for weeks. She’d known it was coming. She’d laid awake for nights on end, sick to her stomach with worry. She’d had nightmare after nightmare. Her nightmares had gotten better since they’d first returned, but in the weeks leading up to her death day, they’d just come back, each in little snippets of her day of execution, the dreams getting longer and longer every time, closer and closer to the the actual beheading.  
By the time she got to her actual death day, she hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in ages. She was exhausted, and yet couldn’t rest. She walked around like a zombie with horrifying images playing over and over in her head.  
When she opened her eyes on May 19th, she instantly felt worse. The images running through the back of her mind were clearer than ever, and she could barely even open her eyes.  
But she had to. She couldn’t lie in bed all day. Some of the other queens had done that last year, but Anne wasn’t in any sort of physical pain. What was her excuse?  
Of course, the other queens all clearly thought she had one, because they were all staring at her when she walked into the kitchen. They all had food, but none of them were even touching it. The second she entered the kitchen, they all dropped their food and pretended not to stare at her, though staring was clearly exactly what they were doing.  
“What’s the problem, bitches?” Her voice sounded shaky, even to her own ears.  
The group silently made eye contact in frantic flashes, trying to pretend they weren’t walking on eggshells, though they clearly were.  
All their eyes seemed to settle on Kat, who gulped nervously and raised her head high.  
“Anne...we know what day it is. We just want to make sure you’re all right.”  
Anne looked up from the table, eyes drooping with exhaustion and pain.  
Catherine reached across the table and grabbed her arm. Unlike all the other queens, she didn’t look fake or scared or like she was trying too hard. She just looked...real. So real that it made Anne want to cry.  
God, today was already such a rollercoaster.  
“Anne, please just tell me. How are you? Really?”  
Anne could have said a million things. But she couldn’t find the words to describe how she was. She felt like a faded, dead, worn-down version of herself, but a thousand times worse. How could she possibly explain that?  
So instead, she did what she’d been accused of 484 years ago. Well, among other things, anyway.  
Anne Boleyn lied.  
“Fine. I’m fine.”  
And she put her head down and tried to ignore the growing feeling that she was withering away, beaten down by days of exhaustion and fear. Today, she would finish withering. She would wither away and disappear.  
She almost gasped at the realization that she was dying all over again. But the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. She’d been feeling like she was dying for weeks, and the images in her brain were only getting stronger.  
There was only one thing left to do.  
She had to say goodbye.  
It was an ordinary spring morning in the tower. Despite the warmth and the sun shining outside the windows, the entire inside of the stone prison was nothing but cold and wet. In the months of captivity Anne had recently endured, she had gotten rather used to the cold, but some days she still shivered. And today was most definitely one of those days.  
Because today, she was getting beheaded.  
“Anne?” She felt hands gently shaking her awake. She glanced at the clock. An hour had passed already since she’d last kept track of the time. Funny how odd time could be when you knew you were about to die.  
She looked up to see Jane standing above her, looking, of course, concerned. The sun was shining through the windows, making her blonde hair grow.  
Anne propped her head up on her hands. “Did I fall asleep?”  
“Yeah. We didn’t want to wake you.”  
“No. It’s alright.”  
“How are you feeling?”  
Anne felt the pull of her pain, the complexity of it all. She looked at the one queen who might be harmed by this realisation. After all, Anne knew the third wife partially blamed herself for Anne’s beheading, no matter how many times she tried to correct her.  
So she lied.  
“I’m fine.”  
Jane smiled down at her, still looking not entirely convinced, but absolutely close enough. Anne could feel her mind beginning to slip away from her again. She only had a little bit of time to say what she needed to say.  
“Jane?”  
Jane blinked. “Yes, love?”  
Anne yawned, fighting back the visions that were already creeping into her eyes. “It’s not your fault.”  
There was silence. “You mean...you know, the…”  
“It’s not your fault I got beheaded.” Anne reached across the table and squeezed Jane’s hand. “Henry was Henry. He would’ve done it anyway.”  
“So...so you forgive me?” The “one he truly loved” had tears in her eyes as she spoke. Anne was glad she was able to at least give someone a little happiness. It was the least she could do.  
“Jane, I forgave you a long time ago.”  
Without a word, Jane wrapped her arms tightly around the French queen, then slowly let go and walked back across the kitchen without a word.  
Anne made her way to the sofa, fighting all the way there, and dropped into the past the second her head hit the cushions.  
She stared out the window. Sometimes, when her daughter played on the lawn, she could see her there, her red hair floating in the wind. She would watch until she was out of sight. She’d always hoped they’d be united someday.  
But now, that day would never come.  
There was a knock at the door. A second later, two guards barged in.  
Anne shrank back against the wall. How could time have passed so quickly.  
But they were already beginning to drag her to her death.  
She blinked, opening her eyes. The room still felt blurry and out of focus, as though the world was getting further and further away.  
Sitting across the room, reading a book in one of the big armchairs, sat Cathy. From a distance, the writer appeared to be deep in thought, but even though everything was blurry, Anne could tell she was looking at her. Watching over her, probably.  
That thought would’ve normally annoyed Anne, but this afternoon (it was afternoon now), it only brought her comfort. She had a tie to the world. For now.  
When she spoke, her voice felt as though there was no strength behind it at all. Like it was simply wind carrying the thinnest cord of sound.  
“Cathy?”  
Cathy looked up from her book. “Yeah?”  
Anne sighed. She and Cathy had never been close, but Cathy was calming. She was clever. She was kind. Now, Anne sort of wished she’d appreciated those things more, instead of teasing her friend for being nerdy.  
“Can you just...stay with me?”  
Cathy didn’t say anything. For a person who made a living creating words, she never bothered with long, flimsy explanations. She knew what everyone really meant.  
So she walked across the room and curled up on the couch, right next to Anne’s waist. She placed her hand on her forehead. It felt cool and strong.  
“Anne, you’re really hot.”  
“I know that.”  
“No, I mean you’re burning up. Badly.”  
Cathy was already starting to blur in Anne’s line of vision as she felt her eyes closing.  
“Cathy?”  
“Yeah.”  
“You were a really, really good friend.”  
She was asleep before she could even hear the sixth queen’s response.  
She hated the feeling of being dragged. She always had. It made her feel like everything was completely out of control, like she’d lost all the power over her life, and all she’d managed to leave behind was destruction.  
She’d killed five innocent men, including her own brother.  
A woman had been separated from her daughter because of her.  
She’d worn yellow to her funeral?  
Was that really wrong?  
Anne sighed as the torchlit tunnels under the tower passed by rapidly. She barely took notice of how terrifying they were.  
Many of her friends were dead. Maybe she could see them, now.  
Somehow, she doubted it. If there was an afterlife, she couldn’t go to the same afterlife as them.  
She didn’t deserve that.  
“Geezus, Boleyn, you look like a corpse.”  
Anne groaned as she opened her eyes. Bad choice of words if there ever was one.  
Above her was the blurry outline of Anna, looking concerned.  
She pushed herself up to sitting, head aching because of all the bright colors.  
Wait, hadn’t she been in the living room before?  
“Why are we in my room?”  
Anna sighed. “You fell asleep on the couch. We brought you up here a few hours ago. You’ve barely even moved since.” She raised her eyebrows as she stared at the second queen. She didn’t have a mirror, but she knew she looked really bad. Worse than she’d ever looked, even.  
Anna raised her eyebrows. “So did you stay up all night just so you could sleep through today?”  
To her surprise, Anne felt rage course through her blood. It hit her like a tidal wave of emotion, knocking her flat onto her back (metaphorically).  
“What, you don’t believe me?!”  
“Of course I believe you, Anne, but today’s a hard day for you, and I only thought…”  
Remarkable. She thought she’d tricked her. Her own best friend didn’t believe her, after all this time. She was exactly like the others. Those who’d said they cared for her, those who’d claimed to be her friends, but all they’d ever done was been waiting so they could call her a liar and stab her straight in the back.  
Their faces joined the crowd of spectators inside her head.  
“You thought what?!” Her voice was colder than she’d ever imagined it would become. “You thought you could just wait until today to tell me how you really felt?!”  
“What? Anne, I...that’s not it at all!”  
“You’re my best friend, Anna! I fucking trusted you. And when I’m trying to say goodbye to you, what do you do?! You go behind my back and call me a liar and get me killed!”  
Anna looked genuinely shaken as she stood and began to walk towards the door. “All right, then.” She spoke in the monotone she often used when covering her emotions. “I’m not going to hurt you anymore.”  
“Well, fine!” And with that, she marched over and slammed the door shut behind her friend.  
Oh god.  
What had she done?  
The second Anna was gone from the room, the faces of the crowd began to fill her head again. She was already leaving the world.  
Would this be the last time? After her best friend had abandoned her?  
Or had she been the one to abandon her best friend?  
She raced away from the bright colors, trying to clear the people out of her head. But as she raced towards the fire escape and the crowd closed in, all she could do was gasp for air, taking in one glance of the setting sun, before collapsing to the metal floor of the fire escape.  
She’d known the crowd was going to be there. She’d known there would be thousands upon thousands of people coming just to see her die. She’d found the very concept ridiculously amusing when she’d first heard of it, but now, it wasn’t quite so funny.  
And knowing the crowd was going to be there hadn’t prepared her for actually seeing their faces spread out in front of her as she walked towards the scaffolding.  
There were the faces of complete strangers, people she’d never even seen before, who already despised her.  
There were the faces of the royal court, manipulative bastards who’d somehow been able to outplay her at every turn.  
Worst of all, there were the faces of those she’d once trusted. Her ex-husband. Her ladies in waiting, her friends, some of whom had left her the second they’d heard of her sentencing.  
They’d betrayed her. Turned their backs on her when she needed them the most. Every single one of them.  
And now she was going to take the fall for it.  
“Anne?”  
Anne opened her eyes for what felt like the millionth time that day (well, technically it was night now), to see her cousin sitting on the fire escape next to her, looking concerned.  
“Anna told me what happened.”  
Anne laughed, her voice still feeling unnaturally cold and harsh. Was this the universe’s cruel reminder of the family that she’d never been able to save?  
“So I suppose you hate me now, too?”  
“Actually, I don’t.” There was something in the youngest queen’s words that made Anne freeze. Kat had a way with emotions, she always had. And it was abundantly clear to the French queen that she was telling the truth.  
“Well, why wouldn’t you?”  
“Because, Anne. You died today. There’s no avoiding it. You’re in pain, even if you’re sleeping for whatever reason, you’re still in pain.”  
“But…”  
Kat reached forward and grasped her hands. “All pain is real, Anne. Even if it’s not technically happening, it’s valid. Whatever’s happening to you right now, it’s not something to hide from us and be ashamed of.”  
Anne sighed. As usual, her cousin was right. What had started as not knowing how to say what she wanted to say had turned into a massive bundle of pain that she was hiding.  
“It hurts so much, Kat.”  
“I know it does. Especially today. But it’ll pass. And we’ll all be together again when it does.”  
Anne sighed. How could she tell her cousin that they wouldn’t be together again, that she wasn’t going to get to see her pain go away, that she was dying?  
Once again, she couldn’t bring herself to say the words.  
So she said goodbye.  
“I’m going back inside.”  
Kat looked up as Anne stood, the night wind blowing in her hair, the city lights shining behind her against the dark backdrop of the sky.  
“Do you want me to come, too?”  
“No, that’s all right. Go downstairs. Watch a movie or make tea or something.”  
“All right.” Kat stood and walked towards the door, ready to go again. Anne could already feel the visions creeping back into the corners of her mind. This was the last one. She could feel it.  
“Kat, wait.”  
“Yeah?”  
There was a pause.  
“I love you.”  
Kat smiled. “I love you, too.”  
And then she was gone.  
And then Anne was gone, too.  
No more waiting, no more worrying. Only pain and pure terror were to come.  
Anne stood on the scaffolding, two guards holding her arms behind her. In front of her stood her ex husband, cold and uncaring, looking more like a spider than a king. A trickster all along. How had she not seen it?  
She pitied his new wife. The one who’d have to deal with him next. She wondered what would happen to her.  
It was all a blur as the executioner came over and she was brought to her knees. She couldn’t believe it was all happening so fast.  
She stared out into the crowd, looking for a friend, yet finding only the sneering faces of her enemies.  
She took one last deep breath.  
The sword swung.  
And then there was the sticky feeling of blood on her neck. The world blurred.  
And then there was pain.  
She screamed, but no sound came out of her throat.  
More pain.  
More blood.  
She was dying.  
It hurt so much.  
She was never, ever coming back.  
“Anne!”  
She sat bolt upright, gasping for air and clawing at her neck, but a pair of hands quickly restrained her arms. Her rapid breathing became more and more even as she looked around and realized she wasn’t on the scaffolding anymore. She was lying on the bed in Catherine’s room.  
“Anne, breathe, all right?”  
She breathed. She slowly felt her fear receding.  
She turned and saw Catherine sitting behind her.  
“Hey.”  
“Hey.”  
“So what happened?”  
Anne could give it to Catherine; she was blunt. She always had been.  
“How are you feeling.”  
She felt tears welling up in her eyes.  
“Fine.”  
She loved so many things, and though her visions were gone, she felt fainter than ever. She was fading and she knew it.  
“Anne?”  
She turned to the Spanish queen, trying to keep the salty water from spilling down her cheeks. “Can you keep a secret?”  
“Of course I can.”  
Anne took a deep breath. After a full day of lying, she was finally ready to speak the truth.  
“Catherine...I’m dying.”  
Silence filled the room.  
“You’re what?”  
Tears spilled through Anne’s eyes and onto her face, and she thought she saw a little trickle of water in Catherine’s right eye, too.  
“You heard me.”  
Catherine inhaled a sharp breath. “And what makes you think you’re dying?”  
Anne tried her best to speak through the tears. “It all makes sense. I’ve been fading at the edges for weeks. You’ve all noticed, I know you have. And I keep trying to stay, but the more I try, the more I fade, and the more damage I do to the only people I’ve ever loved!” She took a deep breath. “How could I tell all of you that I was going to die again on the same day I died before? How could I tell you, or Kat, or Jane, that I was never going to see you again? How could I do that to you?”  
She collapsed to the bed, tears spilling everywhere, but Catherine’s arms wrapped around her, and pulled her into her shoulder, squeezing tightly, making her feel safe.  
“Anne, listen to me. I know you’re not going to die.”  
“And how do you know that?”  
Catherine pulled back and stared straight into her eyes. “Because it’s after midnight.”  
Anne glanced at the clock. 1:30AM, May 20th.  
She stared at Catherine.  
And then relief coursed through her body and she went limp in Catherine’s arms.  
“I...I get to stay!” She was practically glowing with joy. “I’m going to see you again!”  
Catherine smiled and squeezed her hand. “We wouldn’t have it any other way.”  
“Really?”  
“Please. This apartment would be way too quiet without you in it.”  
The two queens shared a smile. Then Anne yawned.  
“Wow, I’m...tired. Actually tired and not...dead.”  
“Why don’t you sleep, then?”  
But before she even finished the sentence, Anne had fallen asleep in Catherine’s bed, smiling and sleeping soundly for the first time in weeks.  
The first queen smiled at Anne’s sleeping form as she turned off the lights, leaving the troubles of May 19th behind.


End file.
